The world was ready when Giant's founders, N.M. Cohen and Samuel Lehrman introduced their new food market concept: replacing high markups with high volume and self-service. It was so novel that skeptics said "supermarkets" would never catch on. But In February 1936 when Giant Store #1 opened, customers from all around the Washington D.C. area flocked to help themselves and take advantage of the low prices. Giant made such an impact on the retail food industry that within one year, area food prices were down 35 percent. Since then, Giant's success has been based on offering a wide variety of quality food at the lowest possible prices, along with friendly, pleasant service customers can count on.
Today Giant Food LLC is a supermarket chain with 202 locations throughout Washington, D.C., Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland. It is headquartered in unincorporated Prince George's County, Maryland. Giant is often referred to as Giant-Landover so not to be confused with sister company Giant-Carlisle. It is also known by its former name, Giant of Maryland even though it was never exclusively a Maryland grocery chain.
In 2004, Giant-Landover merged with sister company Stop & Shop to create Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover, which itself a subsidiary of Netherlands-based Royal Ahold.